‘I just popped out for an hour.’ I sweep my hair out of my face– a habit. ‘Turns out I’ve got an interview.’
‘Same,’ she says, only I knew that already. ‘I’m… I’m looking for Liam and Dean, if you know them?’
Wait, now I’m confused. Lucy is the one interviewing us? I pray to any god who’ll have me that this is instead of the Moriarty interview and not in addition to it, and then I cock an eyebrow and hold out a hand.
‘Liam Bramwell,’ I say, my smile widening. ‘Pleased to meet you.’
I see understanding dawn on her face as her hand takes mine, and I try not to overthink the contact. Instead I hitch a thumb towards the malignant presence to the side of me. ‘And this idiot is Dean Ratcliffe.’
I can’t help myself.
Dean doesn’t retaliate, just laughs amiably and holds his own hand out to her. ‘That’s me.’
Ah, the nice guy act. He does this. I just hope Lucy can see through it.
‘My boss set all of this up,’ she says, smiling between us before she looks back at me. ‘So there’ve probably been a few crossed wires. I take it you didn’t know the interview was with me?’ I shake my head, and she nods, figuring the rest out. ‘And I obviously didn’t know it was with you. But here we are.’
I’m so relieved I could kiss her. So relieved, in fact, that I totally gloss over the fact that means Moriarty must be her boss.
‘So,’ she says, tucking a blonde curl behind one ear, ‘shall we get started?’
The pub’s packed, but we manage to find a free table right at the back, and we squeeze in, Lucy in the corner, flanked by each of us. I don’t love that Dean’s staring me straight in the face if I’m honest, but we’re really wedged in here, and I suppose it means that no part of me has to touch any part of him. I’d be worried I’d burst into flames.
I try to ignore the press of Lucy’s thigh against the side of mine until I realise that her other leg is probably pressed into Dean’s in the same way, and I don’t love that either. Now I feel like maybe I’m bursting into flames after all. Hopefully we can make this quick.
Lucy pulls a notebook and pen out of her bag and smiles up at the two of us. She explains that Mina had a plan with the story, and she’s trying to follow it as closely as she can, talking about the businesses in Whitby that come alive when the GothWeekend is on, and how this quaint seaside town came to be such an epicentre of all things dark and alternative.
I wince internally as she starts with the questions. I’ve never loved talking about myself, and that’s only intensified now that I have so much more to hide. But I hear Sammi’s voice in my head and force myself to smile. It’ll be great publicity. And the good kind, not the sort I normally attract.
Dean hasn’t wasted any time. He’s already talking ten to the dozen about Ravenskull. I mean, the name doesn’t even make sense for a bar. Dean and I were in a band called Ravenskull together, once upon a time, and when we broke up Dean just couldn’t let it go. It’s painfully obvious if you know the story, and if you don’t it just seems like he just picked the two most basic goth things he could think of and mashed them together. I stare at his face as he talks and fantasise about mashing it into something instead.
He’s really working the charm as he talks to Lucy– all eye contact and smiles, lightly bumping her shoulder with his when he tells a joke. Every so often he leans in conspiratorially, like he’s sharing some big secret, when I know for a fact that all of the stuff he’s telling her is readily available on Ravenskull’s website.
Yes, I have hate-read it more than once. No, I’m not particularly proud of that fact.
I try to study them without being too sinister. Lucy’s head is turned towards him, her head tilted just enough that it exposes her neck, the pale skin moving and flexing as she talks. I don’t know if I’m imagining the jump of her pulse at the hollow under her jaw, but I have a sudden, fleeting urge to taste her there. A rush of heat rolls up my body.
I’m just imagining how it would feel to gently drag my teeth down the length of her throat when she spins to face me, and every last thought exits my brain.
‘You got anything to add to that, Bram?’ she asks, her brow furrowed in concentration. ‘Or do you prefer Liam?’
My stomach knots, any lustful thoughts extinguished in a second. ‘Bram is good,’ I say past the grip of my throat. ‘No one calls me Liam anymore.’
Ok, that’s not entirely true, but I don’t want to elaborate, especially not while Dean’s within earshot. She looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to answer her question, but it must be bloody obvious that I wasn’t listening to a word they were saying, because after a moment she smiles and takes pity on me.
‘Dean was just explaining about the relationship the two of you have.’ She spins her pen between her fingers. ‘Sounds like a healthy rivalry you’ve got going on.’
Ha! Healthy is the very last word I’d use to describe it. My eyes dart to Dean’s, and he smirks. There’s no way I can dispute this story without it looking like I’m the arsehole, so I just force my rage down and smile.
‘Since we were kids,’ I say, in what I hope is a light-hearted way, and when Lucy looks down to scribble something else in her notebook, I take the opportunity to glare at Dean over her head. He pulls a face but drops back to a neutral smile as soon as her head comes back up.
I will away the twitch in my eye and tell the story of how we grew up. At first it’s the truth– how we were the only two alternative kids in our class, and we loved and hated each other for it. How we wanted to go our separate ways as we grew up, but somehow those ways always seemed, to the annoyance of us both, to lead in roughly the same direction.
Then I start to leave things out. I don’t mention Jessica– or Dean sleeping with her– nor me pulling Dean out of my house by his hair, leaving him hollering at the front door, naked as the day he was born. I don’t mention how our resulting fight putboth of us in hospital and landed me with a police caution and not one single regret.
Lucy is bent over, furiously scribbling notes as I tell the story, but as I veer away from the truth, her pen stills, and she looks at me steadily, blue eyes soft and fixed on mine like she’s taking in every word.
I just hope to God she isn’t seeing past any of them.